Phillies rookie roughed up in big-league debut

ST. LOUIS - The nerves weren't there for Severino Gonzalez last night. But one of baseball's best lineups was present at Busch Stadium, and it made his first big-league game a pretty forgettable one.

Ten batters in, Gonzalez watched seven of the nine previos batters in the St. Louis Cardinals lineup reach base - and four come around to score, too - en route to an early exit in the Phillies' 11-5 defeat.

"I wasn't nervous at all," Gonzalez said through interpreter and Phillies first-base coach Juan Samuel. "I was calm and concentrating on keeping the ball down and throwing strikes, but unfortunately things did not work. Everything was up."

The 22-year-old Gonzalez, making history in forming the first Panamanian-born starting battery with catcher Carlos Ruiz, surrendered seven runs on 10 hits in 2 2/3 innings. He walked two and didn't strike out a batter.

Twelve of the 18 batters Gonzalez faced reached base.

"Tonight was not my night," Gonzalez said. "I wasn't able to use most of my pitches, because they just attacked the fastball, I didn't get a chance to use my secondary pitches, because they were swinging early."

The Phillies offense did its best to prevent the rookie from being tagged with a loss in his debut, despite the early deficit he put them in. They scored at least five runs for only the fifth time in 21 games this season.

Freddy Galvis, hitting a team-high .368, recorded his third three-hit game in his last five games and scored two runs. Galvis has five three-hit games this season; he's tied with Miami's Dee Gordon for the major league lead.

"Freddy continues to swing a hot bat," said manager Ryne Sandberg, who was noncommittal when asked whether Galvis had earned himself a promotion out of the eight-spot in the lineup.

At the top of the Phillies order, Ben Revere had two hits and a walk, Odubel Herrera drove in two runs and Chase Utley snapped out of a 2-for-38 funk with an RBI single in the second inning. He drove in another run in his next at-bat, too.

But the Phillies couldn't make up for the four-run hole Gonzalez created from the start.

"I thought we had good at-bats and battled against [Cardinals righthander Michael] Wacha," Sandberg said. "We had a chance for a couple more runs and they made some plays with men on base."

Gonzalez, the youngest pitcher to make his major league debut for the Phillies since Scott Mathieson in 2006, was summoned to take the fifth spot in the rotation a week after Dustin McGowan filled the role in a spot start. Before that, Sean O'Sullivan held the role. Eventually, Chad Billingsley is expected to jump into the spot next month.

But eventually the Phillies will want to see their farm system's arms pay dividends in the major leagues. They are rich in talent at Double A Reading, but none of those pitchers was deemed big-league-ready yet.

Aaron Nola, the prize of the Fightin' Phils quintet at Reading, held the Richmond Flying Squirrels to one earned run in seven innings last night to collect his second win of the season. Nola has a 2.81 ERA in 16 games (15 starts) since being selected with the seventh overall pick in last June's draft.

Nola's time will come, and it could very well come at some point this summer. But last night presented an opportunity for another young pitcher who made a cameo start for the major league team this spring.

Gonzalez, the 2013 recipient of the Paul Owens Award as the best pitcher in the minor league system, did his tour at Double A last season. He was 1-1 with a 3.57 ERA in three starts at Triple A Lehigh Valley this month.

"I think the key for him tonight will be to relax and do his thing," Sandberg said before the game. "He had a lot of poise in spring training in a major league setting. Did a nice job. What I really like about him is his tempo in the game. He gets it and throws it. There's not too much thought out there or messing around. He throws it . . . That's one of the first things that jumped out at me when I saw him in spring. I was real impressed. His composure was outstanding."

Gonzalez never gave himself the opportunity to settle in. After getting Jon Jay to ground out to begin his big-league career, Gonzalez watched three Matts - Carpenter, Holliday and Adams - reel off three consecutive hits to push across the Cardinals' first two runs.

"He didn't quite establish both sides of the plate, and hitters were fairly comfortable," Sandberg said.

"I tried to hit the catcher's mitt every time," Gonzalez said, "but unfortunately my command wasn't there."

Gonzalez was pitching behind on the scoreboard from the get-go. He'll likely get the opportunity to redeem himself Sunday in Miami.

"Absolutely," Sandberg said. "I'm not sure what were doing yet, but I'd like to see that."